We can credit the provincial marriage commissioner that hitched Trevor Duffy to his wife a few years back with the kernel of an idea that eventually grew into the Imaginarium.

“I met up with the commissioner, Bob Ligertwood, who owns owns Naked Cyber Cafe, and he started telling me about these puppet shows in Paris,” relates Duffy over the phone from his downtown Edmonton home, where he’s dealing with both puppet and newborn baby matters. “They would have these tiny carts that played music, and when children heard it they would run over to see the performance. I thought to myself, that’s brilliant, I want to do it on a larger scale.”

The first-time father (and his company, Duffy’s Puppets, originally known as EDM FX) had already had plenty of experience working with puppets, first building them for the Castledowns Variety Show back in 2002. After working on a few more community endeavours, the new company seized a very minor Simpsons character called Gabbo and spun out a variety show based around it, followed by an award-winning 2011 web series called Felt Up, in conjunction with local comedians Simon Glassman and Mike Robertson.

It wasn’t long before Duffy and friend Chris Boyle decided to strike out on their own with the web-based effort called Social Fabric (mild bad language warning!), rolling out the first episode in 2014, after which they were commissioned to add puppets to videos for two wildly dissimilar Edmonton artists, four-piece metal act Striker (Second Attack) and singer-songwriter Colleen Brown (Soap and Denim). The Imaginarium is their latest project, a family-friendly show based around 12 new characters (including puppet stars Lena and Loopy) that the company can bring to summer music festivals for both kids and adults. Trevor Duffy answers questions about his company’s newest venture, which will be travelling down to the yearly Sasquatch Gathering this weekend .

Q: The Imaginarium had its debut shows earlier in the summer at the Magnificent River Rats Festival in Athabasca and also at the EDM focused Astral Harvest up in Northern Alberta; how have audiences been reacting?

A: At Astral Harvest I had a few people come up to me and thank us for the show. Probably it was just really nice for them to have something that isn’t exclusively music related at a festival. We did early and late shows in Athabasca, and while we weren’t trying to tailor it exclusively just to children, or to adults, like we did in the past with Social Fabric, the early crowd in Athabasca laughed at our Harry Potter jokes, while at the 11 p.m. show people laughed at everything.

Q: Possibly they were a little more lubricated and looser at that point.

A: (Laughs) Maybe we found the stoner market.

Q: Do you keep the team small with the Imaginarium?

A: Everybody helps out with the entire process, nobody just shows up to perform. There are four of us; Simon Gushlak, Chris Boyle, Danny Jaycock and me, and we’re responsible for the audio tech, lighting cues, everything. Not just doing the puppeteering.

Q: As you’ve said, you’ve done both kids shows and adult shows, but this time you’re specifically sticking with a family friendly theme on the Imaginarium.

A: We just don’t want to be pigeonholed in one particular area. We’re still interested in both, and even though we’ve applied for a spot at the first Vancouver International Puppet Festival with the Imaginarium we’re also interested in seeing what other companies are doing in the “after dark” segment of the festival.

Q: Looking at the photos this seems like it’s much more convoluted to set up than a musical performance.

A: Yeah, we’ve been able to set it up in 20 minutes, but ideally it takes about 45 to do it comfortably, what with the stage dressing, backdrop, curtains and acting area. It would be nice to get it to where we just roll it out and go, that was the original concept, but we’re still getting to that point. We also have to deal with the elements, because you really don’t want it to blow over and fall on a kid!

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